Bleacher Report's Douche of the Week: Roy Williams
Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Roy Williams has been named the Bleacher Report Douche of the Week.
The veteran wideout got payback for rookie wideout Dez Bryant's refusal to carry Williams' pads during training camp earlier this week, when he stuck the youngster with an extravagant dinner bill of $54,896.
While Williams' move was not atypical in the NFL, it doesn't make it any less douchebagish. Let's take a closer look at what happened, why it was douchey, and some of the other douchebags who just missed the cut.
What Happened?
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Early in training camp, Williams walked over to Bryant and dropped his pads at the rookie's feet, telling him to carry them. Bryant refused, not knowing that it's standard operating procedure for rookies to carry the pads of washed-up wide receivers, who weren't very good to begin with.
Williams, being the class act that he is, threatened to go to "Phase 2." Bryant later claimed he didn't know rookies carry the veterans' pads during camp.
Fast forward to this week. To make up for the minute slight, Bryant took Williams to dinner. Harmless, right?
The worst that could happen is Williams rings up a couple thousand dollars in food, and Bryant pays for it. Except, Williams invited several members of the defense to dinner as well. When the dust settled and the hog mileys had finished eating, the bill totalled nearly $55,000.
Needless to say, Bryant paid the bill, and Williams felt the need to joke about it after the fact.
Why It Was Douche-Worthy: The Cowboys' Record Right Now
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While it's all well and good to joke around and haze rookies, typically those things happen during training camp. Rookies carry the veterans' pads, rookies will pay for a meal or two for the veterans, all's well and good—during training camp.
Once the season begins, though, it should be business time. The Cowboys are 1-2 right now, and looked pretty awful in the two losses. The last thing they should be doing is running up extravagant dinner bills for rookies to pay. Right now, the Cowboys' focus should be entirely on Sunday's game, and Williams' antics prove that they're not.
Why It Was Douche-Worthy: Williams Doesn't Get The Joke
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By doing this, Williams has successfully proven to everyone in Dallas why no one in the Cowboys locker room seems to like him.
We all have a friend or an acquaintance who never quite seems to get jokes, or, more importantly, when they're over. You and your friends will sit around, ragging on someone for a few minutes, then move on. But this guy keeps going, keeps busting on the person, keeps dragging the joke out, or goes way overboard with it and insults the person. He or she makes the rest of the group feel uncomfortable, and the conversation kind of dies.
In the Cowboys' locker room, that guy has to be Roy Williams. Running up a reasonably high dinner bill is funny, but Williams didn't get the memo, and overshot the mark by, oh, maybe $53,000. The joke was over when Bryant bought you Air Force 1's Roy. Stop ragging on the rookie and move on to doing your job.
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Why It Was Douche-Worthy: Too Much Money
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Whether or not you're an NFL player, $55,000 is a ton of money. For NFL veterans, it's not an excessive amount, but when you're talking about a rookie wideout, it really is.
Don't get me wrong: Bryant has the tools and the drive to be one of the best wideouts in the NFL. But he's already been injury-prone in his short career, and one injury can end a guy's career, or at the very least send it skidding into the guardrails. For a kid who's making $8.3 million guaranteed, it's not that serious right now. But what if Bryant crashes out of the NFL? Do you think Williams will feel any remorse about milking the kid for $55,000, when two or three thousand would have sufficed?
Why It Was Douche-Worthy: The Precedent It Sets
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If Williams does this to Bryant, what kind of precedent does that set for the rookie? Hazing is a funny thing; you do it because it happened to you, so you want to be on the giving end. But you don't want to repeat what happened to you, you want to do it bigger, and badder.
Bryant has been a fairly impressionable kid thus far in his career. You don't think he's going to try and outdo Williams when the next rookie wideout comes rolling into town? Think again.
Why It Was Douche-Worthy: Roy Williams Kind Of Stinks
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Remember in 2008, when the Cowboys traded several draft picks for Williams? I think it's clear who won out on that trade. Since coming to Dallas, Williams has amassed 985 yards. For a guy who claimed to be a No. 1-level wideout, that's not so good, is it?
Prior to Sunday's explosion, Williams had seven catches for 74 yards and 0 touchdowns through two games. Even with that outburst, Bryant is still outperforming Williams on the year, racking up 158 yards on 14 catches.
There should be a rule in the NFL that if you suck worse than they guy you want to haze, you can't haze him. If anything, Williams should be carrying Bryant's pads, or Bryant should be carrying Jason Witten's or Miles Austin's pads and buying them dinner. But he isn't, because Witten and Austin aren't douches.
The Worst Of The Rest: Honorable Mention Douches
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These are the douchebags who weren't quite douchey enough to make the cut.
Braylon Edwards, WR, New York Jets: Edwards confirmed his douchebag status by getting a DUI last week, at 5:15 A.M. It wouldn't be so bad if Edwards seemed at all contrite about it, or the Jets actually punished him by not letting him play this week.
Jaz Reynolds, WR, Oklahoma Sooners: Reynolds was suspended indefinitely after posting the message, "Hey everyone in Austin, tx.......kill yourself." While this is bad regardless, it's infinitely worse because he posted it on the day that the gunman was running around the University of Texas library. Maybe Reynolds, who has zero catches in 2010, was hoping that if everyone in Austin were dead, he might get to play this week.
Gary Wichard: This sleazeball agent has been financially linked to the North Carolina football program, presumably in an effort to convince the Tar Heels' numerous potential NFL players to sign with him. Because bribing coaches to influence players to sign with you is a great way to prove you can get the job done the right way.
Alberto Contador: The cyclist who won the 2010 Tour de France tested positive for steroids after the race. When asked why, Contador claimed to be the victim of contaminated beef. Yeah, and Brian Cushing was overtrained.
Shameless Plug of the Week
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To see more douchey guys like Roy Williams, be sure to check out "Douchebag," which opens in select theaters this Friday.
To get more information about the movie, check out the website or Facebook page.
Want to know where you can catch "Douchebag?" Be sure to check out the release calendar to see when "Douchebag" opens in a theater near you.
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